Department of Environmental Quality

Across North Carolina's communities, water systems have been pushed to their limits, and in some cases overrun. Hurricane Matthew, for example, wreaked havoc. On a smaller scale, flooding throughout the Triangle this week showed that drainage systems are susceptible even outside major disasters.

Governor Roy Cooper has made cabinet picks for the department of environmental quality and the department of transportation.

The new Democratic governor tapped Michael Regan to lead the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. Regan was most recently the Southeast regional coordinator for the Environmental Defense Fund. Before that, he worked in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under presidents Clinton and Bush from 1998 to 2008.

A key energy advisory commission today pushed back a decision on adding nuclear power to a list of approved energy sources, and create a new Clean Energy Portfolio Standard that would replace the current standard based on renewable energy.

A new report says 20 pits have to be cleaned up rather than covered, but environmental groups think that number should be higher and point to an earlier draft report that identified 27 pits for excavation.